


a shadow of a shadow of a shadow, all for you

by VeteranKlaus



Category: The Umbrella Academy (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, Gen, Implied Childhood Sexual Abuse, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Non-Graphic Rape/Non-Con, Past Rape/Non-con, Pedophilia
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-27
Updated: 2020-07-27
Packaged: 2021-03-05 20:42:08
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,932
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25531534
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/VeteranKlaus/pseuds/VeteranKlaus
Summary: Sometimes, Klaus has nightmares about the mausoleum. Sometimes, in these nightmares, the mausoleum walls were painted cream instead. Sometimes, Klaus wishes the mausoleum was real.
Comments: 29
Kudos: 420





	a shadow of a shadow of a shadow, all for you

**Author's Note:**

> Warnings in the end notes.
> 
> Shout out to the lovely siriuspiggyback who came up with the prompt to this fic:

The mausoleum has always haunted Klaus. 

Even when he left the Academy at sixteen, he never managed to run far enough away from it. It chased him in the shadows, waited for him everytime he closed his eyes, everytime he fell asleep, everytime he had a bad trip, everytime sobriety crept closer and so did the ghosts. He could never run from it, as if he always had one foot stuck in that place. No matter where he went, all paths always ended up taking him right back to those large doors, with Reginald’s hand holding him in place by his shoulder.

He has nightmares of the mausoleum. In his nightmares, Reginald’s voice echoes when he calls his name and says the dreaded words, special training, and his heart echoes like thunder when Reginald marches him down the graveyard. Klaus is six years old when he goes to the graveyard for the first time, and he is eight years old when he goes into the mausoleum. 

He is six years old and the ghosts devour him with their eyes and call his name, a taunting, teasing whisper of _KlausKlausKlaus_ on the shell of his ear, reaching out with cold hands. He is eight years old and Reginald towers over him when he brings him to the mausoleum; when he places his hand on his shoulder and guides him forwards to awaiting doors to a dark room; when he pushes him inside and closes the door and ghosts greet him, and they yell his name, they scream it as if it is their own, and they reach out with greedy, gnarled hands, as if they can claim him if they try hard enough, and Klaus wonders why his father left him here, because he doesn’t like it, he doesn’t like this, and he is afraid and wants to go home and he doesn’t understand why he is here.

He has always been afraid, and the mausoleum always terrifies him everytime he is brought to it over the years. But he learns how to deal with it. He learns to be scared later, when he is at home and alone in his bedroom; he learns to shut himself down as soon as they get close to it; he learns that although he hates the way the drugs make the world blur from one moment to the next, he will come to crave it because anything, anything, is better than being locked in the mausoleum and counting the hours by; better than meeting the ghosts’ eyes, of being aware of each time they yell his name or each time they thrust their hands towards him. 

It’s worth the way his siblings look at him with noses wrinkled in disgust, when they call him selfish and pathetic, when they give up on him eventually. He might not be in the mausoleum anymore, but it is always in his head, always following him, and he drugs himself until the mausoleum is as muted as he can make it, and the others just don’t understand that he can’t go back there; that he will do anything he can to avoid going back there.

And now he is sober.

Klaus wakes with a cry.

An icy feeling submerges him head to toe, that familiar bone-deep chill that chases him from his nightmares and stays with him when he wakes up; a heaviness in his guts and shadows in his skull. His hands shake as he rubs them along his arms, trailing his nails along his skin to leave thin pink trails in their wake, trying to ground himself. He looks around.

He is in his bedroom at the Academy. Unsurprisingly, because he has been here for two weeks now. A little over two weeks, actually. 

As far as everyone is concerned the apocalypse has been averted, but with the revelation of Vanya’s powers, and Allison’s still-healing throat, and the fact that Reginald killed himself, and the caution surrounding the Commission and the possibility of another accidental near-apocalypse, everyone is still sticking around the Academy together; Klaus included. Vanya has begun training. Diego, he thinks, is trying to fix things with that detective. Ben has become corporeal a grand total of two times now, and only once in front of the siblings. Klaus is painfully sober.

And with sobriety, he realises, the nightmares come back full force.

He isn’t particularly surprised by this. The nightmares are nothing new, but at least before he could drug or drink himself into oblivion where his mind would be too paralysed to continue to torment him, and he could get something close to a restful sleep. Without that, he has found himself constantly exhausted with his sleep deprivation, and constantly shaken up from the sleep he does get.

But it’s fine. He’s fine. He is not in the mausoleum. He is not surrounded by old, ugly faces, calling his name and reaching out to touch him with greedy claws. His fairy lights are on, the bedroom is bright. He is alone; he is fine.

He gets out of bed and digs out his pack of cigarettes, lighting one and letting the smoke curl up and burn his nostrils. It’s a cheap brand. People always used to comment on his choice of cigarettes, because he always bought the shitty cheap brands, the worst of the worst. It was because of money, of course. He couldn’t afford to go around blowing his money on packets of cigarettes, even if he could admit that the one he typically got was shit and the more expensive brands were better. He doesn’t like the more expensive ones, though. 

He feels a little more steady once he’s finished the cigarette, stubbing it out on the ashtray by his bed that he really ought to think about emptying soon. And opening a window. His room reeks of ash and smoke, and subsequently so does he. Today isn’t the day he does either, though. He feels steadier, but he can tell that today is not a good day. Today is a day in which he feels small under the ghosts’ invasive stares; where he wants to run far, far away when they reach out to grab and touch him and tear him apart; where he feels like he has one foot stuck in the mausoleum; one hand shoved between the doors, stopping Reginald from closing him in with those horrible ghosts that only want to hurt him.

He shakes himself out as if he can shake away the feeling plaguing him. He sniffs the clothes he picks up before putting them on, and he considers smoking another cigarette but is interrupted by Ben floating through his bedroom door.

“Hey,” he says. “Breakfast’s ready, everyone’s waiting for you.” He pauses, frowns, but he knows Klaus by now, and he knows Klaus’ nightmares. 

It did not take long for Ben to learn about the mausoleum. He was with Klaus for every second of the day after he died; he saw his nightmares and his hallucinations; saw his subconscious react to the memories of a dark room and screaming ghosts and _KLAUSKLAUSKLAUSKLAUS_. It was impossible to hide the mausoleum from Ben, and he came clean about it eventually, told him about the way Dad would call for his special training and they would drive through the city until he was lost, how they would walk down aisles like corridors with ghosts watching him, Reginald’s hand heavy on his shoulder; how he would shove him forwards into that room, and close the doors behind him, and the ghosts would come and everything was fuzzy and he’d be there for hours and his father would tell him to stop overreacting, stop being so dramatic, it wasn’t that bad, he was fine. How every time Klaus heard the call for special training, he froze, until he couldn’t care anymore and he nearly paralysed himself with drugs each night.

“Yeah,” he croaks, scrubbing at his damp cheeks until they are dry and irritated. He tries to chase away the bubbling anxiety under his skin by grasping onto the dog tags around his neck, thinking of Dave, Dave, Dave, who was sweet and patient and gentle with him no matter what. He wishes Dave were here to help him, but his skin crawls and it is agonisingly easy to imagine Dave’s face leering around him, cawing his name, cold hands reaching for him from every angle to tear him apart and devour him. 

He walks to the kitchen, pretending he doesn’t feel Reginald’s presence lurking over his shoulder and hiding in every shadow, that the walls aren’t closing in on him. He pulls a chair out for Ben and then sits on his own, in front of a steaming plate of breakfast Reginald would never approve of, because he tracked their diet - tracked everything, every minute of every day. God help them if they stepped a toe out of line.

He picks at his food with no appetite, his stomach rolling beneath his skin as if trying to imitate the Horror. When he tunes into his siblings’ conversation, he hears them talking about today’s plans. Diego is going out for a while; Vanya has a rehearsal. Five, Allison, Luther and himself have nowhere to be; nothing to do. He thinks Luther might be helping Pogo go through Reginald’s things, and so might Allison then. He has no idea what Five will be doing. He doesn’t really care, either.

He has knitting to attend to. Hopefully the simple, easy task will keep his mind occupied successfully. When he can slip out of the kitchen after cracking enough irritating, dry jokes to keep his siblings from talking to him too much, he returns to his bedroom where he balances a cigarette between his lips and forces his shaky fingers to twirl wool around his knitting needles.

“You okay?” Asks Ben, wandering through into his room. 

“Fine,” Klaus utters, voice muffled by his cigarette. He loops the wool again. 

“Klaus,” says Ben, and he tries not to shudder when he says his name. “Seriously?”

“Nightmare,” he admits, just to get him to back off a little.

“About there?” Ben asks, offering a sad, sympathetic frown.

“Where else?” He asks, although there are plenty other places he could go in his nightmares. He could go into dark, dirty basements he thought he’d never get out of, or jail cells where he was desperate enough for a hit to do anything and where the police already knew that, or he could go to the front lines in a warzone, where Dave - in his arms-

He exhales slowly through his nose. Loops some more wool. 

“You’re doing good, Klaus,” Ben says, and again, his name - sometimes, Klaus wishes people would stop saying his name. Sometimes it doesn’t feel like his own name. The ghosts claimed it for themselves. 

Klaus isn’t doing good. Klaus is sober. Klaus is sober, and he’s nearly back in the mausoleum, because it creeps closer every day and he feels sick and his palms sweat and he feels too young and too small and too present.

Nonetheless, he bobs his head in a nod to Ben, refuses to meet his gaze and continues to knit after he pulls his headphones on to drown out the sound of crying in the hallway. He could make a scarf. One for Allison, maybe. He knows she would (maybe) appreciate it, because she’s the most fashionably inclined after himself. Or he could make one for Vanya, for when it gets cold. She’d appreciate the gesture. Or he could make it for Five, because Five would hate it but he would keep it in his room and he’d wear it when Winter comes around, after Klaus had even forgotten he’d given it to him. He’s sure Five would still wear it in five years. It’s the little things Five does to let them know he cares; like threatening to gut any of them in a faintly fond tone.

He has made good progress with his scarf when Ben interrupts him, waving his hand in his face to get his attention. He can’t help when he startles and flinches back from his hand, and he lifts one side of his headphones, ready to put it back down if he starts nagging him about lunch. Instead, he jerks his head towards the door just in time for someone to knock. 

Sighing, he drops his knitting and his headphones. “Yuh-huh?” He calls, tipping his head back to rest against the wall. At his call, the door opens and in shuffles Allison, then Luther behind her. “What can I do for you?” He asks, curious. “Did I miss lunch?”

“Uh, no,” says Luther, shaking his head. “We were clearing out some of Dad’s stuff, and, uh, we found this diary,” he says, voice pitched up at the end to sound like a question. He lifts his hand and displays a small, red diary. 

“Okay?” Says Klaus, raising one eyebrow. “What’s that got to do with me?”

“It’s all about you,” states Luther, opening it to skim his eyes over one page. Klaus frowns. “It’s, uh, a schedule, I guess? But-”

Klaus’ mouth suddenly feels dry with a sneaking suspicion. “You know Dad,” he says instead, picking up his knitting. “He scheduled everything to the second; including our special training. It’s probably that. Just throw it away, or something; I don’t want it.”

Allison shakes her head, and then hurriedly writes on her notepad before holding it out.

_Not special training - meetings with mayor?_

Klaus’ frown deepens. “What?” He asks, looking at the book, and inexplicably his heart rate picks up and his skin crawls. 

“Yeah,” says Luther, nodding. “You and Dad were meeting the mayor a ton. Regularly, most of the time. What was that about?” There’s a hint of jealousy in his tone that Klaus picks up on. “Interviews?” He asks, frowning. 

“I - what? No,” Klaus scoffs. “I didn’t - I never had meetings with him, christ.” 

The mausoleum was always cold, like the dead; as if a window had been cracked open and he could feel a breeze that chilled his bare skin to the bone. With a gapped window, he could hear the sounds of the city, could hear cars pass by frequently. Only, the graveyard was not in the city. Why did he hear it so close?

 _We met him - he came to check the Academy_ , Allison’s notepad says. Luther nods.

“Yeah, I remember it, sort of.” He scratches the back of his neck with a large hand. “We were, what, six? He came to visit us and talk to Dad, I guess. But why’d you have meetings with him?”

Allison hits him with her notepad, attempting to reign in his Number One attitude. He frowns apologetically, but Klaus isn’t sure it’s entirely sincere. Klaus shrugs, swallowing. His stomach feels like lead. When he holds his hand out for the journal, it trembles in the air. Luther hands it over.

“You can’t lie about this, Klaus,” he states. “You two met him for years. Just tell us why - reports? Interviews? You don’t need to lie about this.”

“I’m not,” Klaus says, frowning, but Allison gives him a skeptical look, unsurprisingly on Luther’s side. Klaus lies a lot, but he never-

He takes the book and opens it, but there’s nothing more to see than what they said. It is a diary. The entries are full of the same thing; the mayor’s address, his name - or, Number Four - the date, the time. Eight to twelve. Ten to one. Nine to one. 1997, 1998, 1999, all the way up until the last date; December twelve, 2005, eight to four. 

Klaus knows that day. He ran away that day. 

The book stares up at him, pages old, writing scrawled, repetitive. He-

His brain itches; his skin crawls. He-

He is six years old, and today is an important day. They have an important guest coming over; a friend of Dad’s, he assumes. They line up in their uniforms from One to Seven, hair styled to perfection, all waiting in the main room. Finally, Dad and the guest come down from his office, flanked by Pogo (Grace waited with them) and Reginald introduces them, for the first (and only) time as their names; Luther, Diego, Allison, Klaus, Five, Ben, and Vanya. 

The man is tall, taller than Dad. His hair is streaked with light grey stripes, his face round and cheeks rosy. He takes them all in with a careful eye before he grins and introduces himself; Mayor Jackson, here to see the growing Umbrella Academy. He is kind, asks them their powers, asks them how they are doing, shakes their hand. His grip is tight, like Luther’s, and he leans close, and he lingers in front of him, so Klaus smiles because he likes meeting people and the man is nice and when Klaus smiles, Mayor Jackson’s smile widens.

“Well,” he says, after he has spoken with them a little. Klaus pretends he doesn’t see the way his siblings stare at him in jealousy, because he got most of the Mayor’s attention, but he brings it up later to brag about. “It was lovely to meet such fine children, but I’m afraid I’ll have to go now.” He turns to Dad, nodding his head, and all of them say a synchronised goodbye as Dad leads him away.

Next month, Dad takes him to special training. His special training is in a graveyard outside of the city, where he sits and tries to summon specific ghosts and talk to them. This time, though, Dad takes him to a large, gated house, not quite as big as the Academy, but nearly. The Mayor greets them, and they go to talk in a different room because he wants to talk to one of the Academy members. He isn’t afraid when Dad leaves them alone, because Mayor Jackson is nice, and they talk, and he hugs him like Mom does and plays with his hair, and he gives him sweets that Dad would never let him eat, so long as he doesn’t tell anyone else. Of course he doesn’t, even if he wants to brag about it to the others. 

Klaus is seven years old - seven years old and two days - and Mayor Jackson says he has a gift for him, and only him. It’s a surprise gift; a secret. He can’t tell anyone else about it. His gift is that he can make him feel good, and Klaus - 

Klaus is-

The air is knocked from his lungs. Something thuds, like a body falling, but it is a diary falling from his hands onto the floor of his bedroom and Luther and Allison are standing, staring at him, asking him things he can’t hear over the ringing in his ears. 

Klaus is eight years old. He doesn’t really like seeing Mayor Jackson so much anymore, not because he’s mean, but because he feels weird whenever he does. Reginald’s hand on his shoulder marches him down the hallway because he has been saying how he is tired and wants to go home but he isn’t allowed to.

There is cleaning staff that eye them when they walk about with heavy gazes, peering out of rooms either side of him on this endless corridor, watching him. He goes to the same room he does every time, the bedroom, with cream walls and a fancy chandelier that isn’t on tonight. A window is cracked open, and a breeze filters in, and he can hear the faint sounds of the city outside. Mayor Jackson smiles at him; replaces Dad’s hand on his shoulder with his own.

“Dad?” He says, turning to watch him standing in the doorway. 

“Behave,” says his father, and the doors close in slow motion, thudding together. Mayor Jackson reaches out and turns the lock. 

They talk for a short while, like always. Klaus tries not to shy away from the hand in his hair. The room is dark, and the Mayor offers him a glass of water as well as an outstretched palm with two white pills on it.

He expects him to take them, and Klaus doesn’t know any better, so he does. 

Klaus’ head feels heavy, and his skin hot. The Mayor helps him lay down on his large bed, and helps him out of his blazer and vest to cool down, and then out of his shirt; out of his shorts. The breeze from the window is chilling on his bare skin. 

The ghosts in the mausoleum were old. In his head, they were always exaggerated; sinking eyes, sagging skin, hot, rancid breath, and they knew his name despite never hearing it. They drooled and groaned and moaned and they were everywhere, everywhere, everywhere. They were terrifying because Klaus was terrified. 

“Klaus-”

 _KlausKlausKlaus_ \- Klaus wants to rip his hair out at the sound of his own name. 

His knees sting when he falls onto them in front of the trash can in his bedroom, stomach heaving past his lips. There is a flash of blue, Five’s voice asking what the fuck is going on-

Klaus’ wild eyes look around the room and they fall on the diary on his floor, open at a random page. 

Klaus wipes his hand along his mouth and does what he has been doing for years; he runs.

### 

“You’re okay, you’re okay, Klaus,” says Ben, crouched in front of him when he comes back to himself. He narrowly managed to dodge his siblings in his dash out of the Academy, ran until he was sure that if anyone (namely Five) followed him he surely would have lost him by now, and then he stopped in an alleyway where the world seemed to crumble around him and he couldn’t breathe. 

And now-

Now-

“Deep breath, Klaus, come on,” insists Ben, forcing him to gasp again, trying to make it steady. His throat feels tight and small, his lungs trembling as much as the rest of his body. 

Klaus has known this for quite some time; of course he has. But he has known that he has been lying to himself for longer than he’d like to admit. But the mausoleum-

The memories had been so vivid. Memories of a dark, cold room that Reginald left him in, memories of ghosts hounding him; old men, exaggerations of death in ugly ways; bloated, sickly, twisted; personifications of how everything had felt. And it-

The mausoleum was horrible, but it was better than the truth. He had spent his life running from the truth, and the closest he could get to peace was a shaky disguise that he had thrown himself into believing, and thrown himself into drugs to try and cover up and forget. 

All that running, and he’s back there again, and the mausoleum shatters and the shards form together into memories that make him gag and spit up bile onto the floor and sob into his hands. 

The drugs - he’d thrown himself into them once he realised that he could use them to detach himself from his body and blur the nights, and his first dealer had been the Mayor who had supplied him with them every night they met until Klaus began to ask for spares, and then he found other dealers, different drugs; tried to take enough to rot his brain so that he wouldn’t be aware of the way the cream coloured walls closed in on him; how it was the Mayor, and then the chief of the police in the city, politicians he didn’t even know existed; whoever needed to give Reginald the go ahead to allow him to continue the Umbrella Academy of child soldiers, especially after Five disappeared; when the public began to protest the Academy’s existence and question its ethics.

Klaus knew, deep down, that the mausoleum was never real, but being confronted with the truth makes him feel as if the world is crumbling around him, and the memories he buried down flood forwards, and the world Klaus has built up comes crashing down on him.

Ben is there until he cries himself out, trying to calm him down but looking almost scared, because he has seen Klaus in many states but not one like this, with seemingly no explanation. He listens to Klaus sniffle, sitting beside him on the floor.

“Was it… was it the mention of the training?” Ben asks, trying to find his footing, and Klaus’ body twitches. He swallows down the lump of nausea in his throat several times; flexes his shaking, tingling hands before holding them to his chest; curling his fingers around the dog tags there. “Klaus?” Ben murmurs, eyes wide with concern. 

He opens his mouth; closes it again. Opens it; closes it. 

When he speaks, his voice is hoarse and quiet. “I… the - the mausoleum…” Ben stares at him, waiting patiently, not pushing him. He inhales shakily; grasps Dave’s dog tags so tightly they cut into his skin. “It - it wasn’t real, Ben.”

Ben blinks. “What?”

Klaus’ face crumples and he looks away. “It wasn’t real,” he whispers again, more so to himself. “I made it up.”

“But - Klaus,” Ben stammers, moving into his line of sight. “I - I saw how you acted, and the nightmares and flashbacks, Klaus - what do you mean?”

Klaus folds his arms over his knees and rests his forehead on them. Ben won’t believe him. No one will, and he knows that, even with the diary - and god, Reginald tracked every meeting? Every one? - and he knows that. Even if they did, he has no idea he would say it. So, he bites his tongue and doesn’t move.

“Klaus, come on.” Ben shifts, and he touches his wrist. Klaus jumps half out of his skin, head snapping up to see his fists glowing blue. Ben offers a sad half-smile. Klaus is stuck staring at his hand, and he swallows down the rising tears. 

He and Ben don’t have a perfect relationship just because Ben is dead and Klaus is - or, at least, was - the only person he can talk to, but he’s by far closer to him than the others are, and he understands him, and he knows Ben cares, really, even if he doesn’t know what is going on, or if he doesn’t fully understand why he does what he does. 

Klaus wraps his arms around him, melting into his brother as a new wave of sobs bubble up past his lips. 

“You should go home,” Ben murmurs, stroking his shoulder. “The others will be worried. Plus, you probably cut your feet running out here.”

Klaus still revels in being able to touch Ben again; in the way his leather jacket digs into his forehead, and his chest, and how he can squeeze his arms around him and not go through him. He’s cold, unnaturally so, but he doesn’t really care about that.

“Not yet,” Klaus murmurs, shaking his head. “I don’t - no.”

“Okay,” Ben says easily, running his hand down his back. “Okay. We can wait here for a while, then. But still, you should get back before it gets dark, at least.”

Klaus doesn’t make any promises. When he can’t keep Ben corporeal any longer, they sit side by side against the wall, and Klaus closes his eyes and tries not to think about the urge to run, to drink and drug himself into oblivion, or about what might wait for him when he gets back to the Academy.

To Ben’s quietly said displeasure, it is getting dark by the time he finally goes back. He finds himself utterly drained of energy and motivation to go back, and he spends most of the time in the alleyway cautiously sorting through his memories again; building up walls to distance himself from them; facing the reality he tried so hard to run from. 

He doesn’t even know exactly why Reginald did that to him. It’s not as if he was ever told anything, other than that he had to do it. He didn’t understand it at first, too young to truly understand what was even happening even when he wasn’t drugged, but he began to rebel when he was older, getting his own drugs and high nearly every day. 

Reginald hadn’t tolerated him acting like that, and he had managed to shut down his attitude pretty quickly, too. It didn’t take much. A simple threat; would you rather it be one of your siblings instead? 

Klaus kept his mouth shut, after that. At least about that situation. He hated it, but he would never, never, put his siblings through that. 

He debates climbing up the fire escape to go inside, but his feet do hurt and it would take more energy than he has at the moment. He resigns himself to whatever awaits him behind the doors, but it takes him several moments to find the courage to open the door.

He hardly makes it past the foyer when Five appears in front of him.

“Where the hell have you been?” He asks, eyes narrowed as he scrutinises him; seeing if he’s relapsed, Klaus thinks.

“I’m sober,” he mutters with a sigh, wrapping his arms around himself. “I went for a walk.”

“Seemed more like a run,” Five mutters, and glances down at his feet. Klaus shifts subconsciously. “I’ll get a medkit,” he sighs. “Go to the main room.”

Klaus holds Five’s gaze for several moments. He wonders if he’ll teleport him or pin him down if he tries to go to his bedroom instead. The quirk of Five’s eyebrow tells him so, and he sighs, finding no energy to be able to fight with him. He drags himself into the main room where everyone else is, unsurprisingly, waiting. He spots the diary on the coffee table first.

He sits down on the empty couch facing everyone else as if they are his audience, and he feels too exposed like this; as if he’s on display for everyone as they watch him sink onto the couch and curl up. But Ben sits beside him, gives him a reassuring smile.

“So,” says Diego. “I heard you pulled a runner. How about we just get this over with so we can have dinner and go to bed.”

Allison gestures in agreement towards Diego, and Luther nods. Mom comes into the room and Five appears. He has to sit still as Mom begins to clean up his feet; cleaning the little cuts he’s gained, picking out a few small stones from his soles. 

“So, it’s a diary from Dad that tells us you and the old man had meetings with the mayor,” announces Five, and Klaus suppresses the urge to flinch. He chews his thumbnail instead, staring at the little book. “What’s so important about it?”

“Does it matter?” Klaus asks, voice quiet. 

“You tell us.”

“No, it doesn’t.”

“Klaus, stop lying,” Luther says, sounding frustrated. “Why won’t you tell us what it’s about? Why did you run away?”

“Because it doesn’t matter,” he states, glancing between them all. He wishes he could say he did it to protect them, and maybe he did at one point, but that isn’t how it started. He didn’t know what was happening to him. And maybe, maybe Klaus would be able to keep burying these memories down and avoid them, but he can’t shake the memories of being confused and afraid and innocent, as if a part of him is still that kid who never understood what was going on and would want to go home and see his siblings and hug his mother; as if he is still that kid and could never move on from it, and it breaks a part of him. If he had been older, maybe he could have pretended he was okay with it; maybe could have processed it better; could have pretended he accepted it, could have told himself he enjoyed it, even. But he wasn’t older. He was a child. 

He closes his eyes, swallowing dryly. 

“Klaus?” Says Vanya, her voice gentle and hesitant. Klaus can’t bring himself to look at her. Doesn’t want to imagine Reginald deciding Number Seven was expendable and sacrificing her instead. 

“You’re making this more difficult than this needs to be. So what, Dad chose you to give reports or interviews or whatever?” Five says, frustration seeping into his tone. 

“Why do you care?” Klaus croaks, losing whatever bravado he had managed to tell himself he had, building up the urge to run away again. 

“Klaus, you threw up and ran away for an entire day,” Diego snaps. “Ever considered that we fucking care about you?”

Klaus blinks at him, eyes wide. 

“Klaus,” murmurs Ben, catching his attention. “They really do. They all just want to help.”

He exhales slowly, looking at everyone else and then at the diary on the table. He opens his mouth, tries to think of something to say, a witty joke or a cruel insult, something, but he can’t think of anything. His mind can’t come up with anything, stuck circling old memories. His eyes close and his hands tremble near his face.

“Why was Dad taking you to the Mayor’s so much?” Asks Vanya. He inhales sharply, shaking his head.

“I don’t know,” he says, peering out at them. All of his brothers open their mouths to reply, besides Ben, and so he cuts them off. “I don’t know _why_ , I don’t. He - he liked to talk to me. We played, uh - we played board games.” He swallows, tilting his head up to look at the ceiling, and he smiles shakily. “He gave me sweets.”

“Klaus…” Murmurs Ben, frowning at him. 

“He kissed me.” He spits it out before he can back out. 

“What-”

“Klaus?”

“What,” Luther says, louder than the others. “Klaus - why would you-”

“ _I_ didn’t do anything,” Klaus snaps defensively, bristling, but the bite in him fades quickly when he keeps talking and his voice wobbles. “I was - I was _six._ I was six.” His hands come up to cover his face, and he gasps when an icy fist closes around his lungs and squeezes them.

“Breathe,” murmurs Ben right beside him. “Breathe, Klaus, you’re alright.”

“Klaus,” says Diego, voice trembling slightly. “What - what do you mean, Klaus?” 

“Dad took me there,” he states. “Told me it was - was training. I never… each time, I never - knew, if I was going to train, or go - _there_.” He inhales and swallows, keeps his face hidden behind his hands, pressing his fingers against his eyes as if he can push the tears back in as he ignores his siblings talking, pacing, asking him stuff. What gets his attention is the sound of a cane, and he looks up just in time to watch Pogo shuffle into the doorway; he looks around them all and then at the diary on the table and he freezes. His wide eyes bounce to Klaus.

“Pogo - Pogo, is this real?” Luther demands. Klaus missed him rising to his feet. He doesn’t dare look away from Pogo. Of course he knew.

“I…” He says, trailing off with nothing to say.

“Pogo, tell us right f- _fucking_ now,” Diego hisses, hand curling repeatedly into a fist. 

“Master Klaus… I am… truly sorry,” he says hesitantly, and Klaus makes a sound that is supposed to be a laugh but hardly resembles one. He buries his face back in his hands, shaking his head. 

“What the fuck - what the actual fuck, Pogo-”

“I’ll kill him. I’ll-”

“Klaus? Are you-”

“Why?” Klaus asks, lifting his head again to look at Pogo, who has taken a few steps backwards, away from Diego who is prowling forwards, though freezes at the sound of Klaus’ voice. Everyone does.

“What?”

“Why?” He asks again. “Why did Dad do it?” 

Pogo looks between them all as if he might find some help, and Klaus is more surprised than he’d ever admit to realise everyone is on his side here. He sighs, looking ashamed. 

“Your father… he was determined to see the Umbrella Academy through,” he states, voice quiet. “A lot of people did not agree with it, initially.”

Klaus laughs again, tipping his head back. “So he, what, sold me out?” He asks with a bitter grin, though it is defeated by the way his voice breaks and trembles. “Support the Umbrella Academy and get to - to-”

He bites his tongue and looks away, and Diego takes that as a signal to keep advancing on Pogo, forcing him out of the room. Klaus can’t bring himself to be worried for him. 

The couch dips beside him and he jumps when someone touches his wrist. It’s just Allison though, with wide red eyes and a shaking hand that holds out her notepad.

_Why didn’t you tell us?_

Klaus bites his lip. “I-” he sighs, looking away. He scrubs at his eyes with the heels of his hands and Allison squeezes his hand gently. He doesn’t think they’d appreciate the fact that he had been terrified that they wouldn’t believe him, but he can’t imagine telling them that it could have been them instead. “I didn’t want to think about it,” he murmurs with a half-hearted shrug. “I just - I didn’t want to.”

Allison hurries to scribble on her notepad, a wobbly _I’M SO SORRY_. He hurries to shake his head, and when she puts the notepad down, hesitantly opening her arms a little, he leans forwards to hug her and he isn’t sure if it is for himself or for her. He prefers it over listening to his raging and shocked brothers.

Allison strokes his back and he realises he is shaking again, trembling violently against his sister, and Allison must feel it too because she tightens her grip on him. 

When he dares to try and open his eyes again, Diego is storming into the room, Five is nowhere to be seen, Vanya looks sick and Luther looks utterly shocked. He doesn’t want to deal with any of them, so he drops his head back onto Allison’s shoulder and shudders when she strokes his neck and runs her fingers through his hair. They’d been close as kids; she’d painted his nails, did his makeup, even when his eyes were bloodshot or he kept spacing out because of the drugs. The idea that she could have gone through what he did instead, it makes him sick, and he clings onto her as if it will reassure him that she’s fine. At the same time, that kid inside of him revels in the touch; in that tight, reassuring hug he had always wanted for so long. 

“Klaus,” says Diego, pacing, clenching his fists. “Klaus-”

Allison waves one hand at him, trying to get him to calm down or shut up - Klaus doesn’t mind which one - but he, unsurprisingly, ignores her. He doesn’t stop until Klaus lifts his head and croaks out a quiet, “Diego, please.”

He freezes, eyes wide as he looks at Klaus. 

“Klaus,” he murmurs, and his face crumples and he looks so sad. Klaus just shakes his head, trying to dislodge the ringing in his ears, the _KlausKlausKlaus-_

“I just want to move on, Diego,” he mumbles. “I just want to forget about it.”

“How did we not know,” Diego says helplessly, mad at himself, Klaus realises. 

“I didn’t let you know,” he says simply, inching away from Allison and wiping his cheeks. “Can we… can we just burn that fucking book.”

Diego swipes it off the table and throws it in the fire. It lands, of course. Diego never misses. It isn’t as satisfying as he hoped it would be, watching it be eaten up by flames. The book turns black and crumbles apart, and flames envelope it and curl up high in the fireplace. Pages upon pages of entries burn, getting rid of the evidence of what happened. 

The memories are still there. The nightmares will still happen, though maybe worse now with his mausoleum facade shattered, and he will still be as afraid as he has always been. 

Klaus closes his eyes and the flames still flicker on the backs of his eyelids, and he feels no better than he ever has.

### 

He knows before he sees it on the news that old Mayor Jackson is dead. He isn’t dumb enough to wonder where Five disappeared to yesterday. 

The news doesn’t satisfy him in the same way watching the book burn hadn’t satisfied him. What was done is done, and though Klaus knows his siblings support him, he knows now that Reginald saw so little worth in him that he was fine to exploit him in whatever ways he had to for his precious Umbrella Academy. 

It is a hard struggle with his self-worth after that. He sits up at nights, smoking to chase away his fatigue, trying to avoid sleep like the plague in fear of what memories might creep up on him, but it is always inevitable that he gives in eventually and relives the old memories again and again. He tries, once more, to shove all the emotions down, but it always catches back up to him in the end as if moving on is not an option for him. 

Sometimes, Klaus dreams about a scared little kid, and he can never say the right things to reassure them. 

Sometimes, Klaus dreams about the mausoleum again, and he still wishes the mausoleum was real every time he dreams of it.

**Author's Note:**

> Warnings for: past child sexual abuse, rape/non-con, pedophilia.


End file.
